OnePlus 3 will be sold by O2 from 29 September

In a surprise announcement, O2 has confirmed that it will be selling the OnePlus 3, making it the first UK network to offer OnePlus devices directly.

OnePlus has been shaking up the smartphone world, offering quality devices with flagship specs and design, but at prices that make mainstream manufacturers wince. The OnePlus 3 is one of the most exciting devices of 2016, but up till now, you've had to buy it SIM free direct from OnePlus.

O2's offering changes that, bringing a phone with a wide cult following on monthly tariffs. You'll be able to bag a OnePlus 3 from £28 a month on the O2 Refresh plans.

"We chose O2 as our exclusive partner in this important market because they have a history of focusing on the most premium smartphones for the most savvy users, which aligns very well with our products and users," said Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus.

Those with a longer memory might remember that O2 had the exclusive on the Apple iPhone in 2007 and 2008, which is probably what Pei is referring to.

The OnePlus 3 comes with a premium metal body, a 5.5-inch AMOLED display that, although Full HD rather than Quad HD, is bright and vibrant. The handset is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset with 6GB of RAM; there's a 3000mAh battery that will see you through the day and some really fast charging on offer too.

The OnePlus software sits on top of Android. It calls itself Oxygen OS and it's a highly customisable skin that will let you do all sorts of fancy things to your phone, importantly it doesn't get in the way or slow things down. There's a 16-megapixel camera on the back.

You'll be able to get the OnePlus 3 from O2 on a range of tariffs, for example for £35.50 a month you'll get unlimited texts, unlimited calls and 3GB of data. And, needless to add, one of the hottest handsets of 2016.

The Samsung Galaxy S10+ is now available on EE who have been awarded the UK’s best network for the fifth year running. RootMetrics tested the four UK networks and EE was faster and more reliable than all of them, with better data performance. Their network has come a long way since they launched in 2012. Back then they had 11 UK cities covered by 4G. Today they cover most of the UK’s land mass, thanks to 19,000 state-of-the-art 4G sites. They’ve got faster, too – from 50Mbps to a maximum speed of 400Mbps. And they’re soon to experience even greater possibilities with the launch of 5G.